Staying true to his rural roots

Apr. 11, 2013

Top Athens High School student Luke Mroczenski is pursuing a career as a high school math teacher. / T'xer Zhon Kha/Gannett Central Wisconsin Media

Top Athens High School student Luke Mroczenski plans to pursue a career as a high school math teacher. / T'xer Zhon Kha/Gannett Central Wisconsin Media

About Luke Mroczenski

Age: 18 Residence: Town of Rietbrock School: Athens High School Parents: Mark and Dawn Mroczenski College plans: Attend the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and major in secondary math education Hobbies: Sports (especially soccer), hunting, fishing, video games

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TOWN OF RIETBROCK It’s heady stuff when you get recruiting emails from Yale and other Ivy League schools.

And it shouldn’t be surprising that Athens High School senior Luke Mroczenski would attract the attention of big-time colleges. He’s a 4.0 student, an athlete, a member of National Honor Society and a participant in the school’s choir and musical productions.

Outside of school he has participated in church mission trips helping out in low-income areas as diverse as Chicago and Cass Lake in northern Minnesota. In between all that, he works hard helping his parents run a rotational-grazing dairy farm in the town of Rietbrock.

Add to that valuable and immeasurable people skills — Mroczenski was named captain for the Athens football, basketball and track teams — and you have a young man who epitomizes a recipe for success, said Tim Micke, principal of Athens High School. “Luke is an outstanding person who possesses tremendous leadership skills,” Micke said.

But the idea of Yale, another East Coast or even a larger college closer to home did not really turn Mroczenski’s head. “That doesn’t fit me at all,” he said.

Mroczenski loves central Wisconsin and Athens. He likes the rural, small-town life, and sees himself one day finding a position teaching math at a smaller high school, settling down and raising a family. If it works out that school is on the western side of Athens, so much the better.

“I think that would really be cool,” Mroczenski said. “I really like Athens and it has become a part of me.”

Don’t mistake that attitude as a lack of ambition. He’s been pushing himself for years academically, on the sporting fields and farm. His biggest challenge, he said, is to not get overwhelmed and frustrated as different interests tug at his attention.

He has had to focus on “time management, making sure my priorities are straight,” Mroczenski said. “There were times when I just wanted to be a kid and hang out with my friends, but there were chores to do, or studying to be done.”

Mroczenski set his priorities in order of faith, family and school, and his love of meeting a challenge helped spur him on.

“I like having good grades, it’s like any other competition, although I’m not trying to beat anybody,” Mroczenski said. “It’s a personal thing. I try to do things well, as best I can. I get a good feeling from it. An ‘A’ on a test is like winning a race.”

Mroczenski is naturally good at and enjoys math. He was thinking about entering a profession such as actuarial science, but has backed away from that idea.

“I’ve always enjoyed people, and I love helping people,” Mroczenski said. He figures that teaching a subject he enjoys in a place in which he is comfortable is a great way to live a life.